U.S. federal authorities investigates Beoing 777 plane crash

• U.S. federal authorities are still in the initial stages of investigation into Saturday's deadly crash landing.

• "It's really important to put all of the pieces of the puzzle together," Hersman said.

• She said the investigators would have to corroborate "a lot of information."

WASHINGTON, July 7 (Xinhua) -- U.S. federal transportation authorities are still in the initial stages of their investigation into Saturday's deadly crash landing of an Asiana Airlines Boeing 777 commercial plane at San Francisco International Airport, an official said Sunday.

Deborah Hersman, the chairwoman of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), said the investigators have already talked to law enforcement officials who spoke to the pilots Saturday night and hope to interview the pilots of the aircraft in the coming days.

"It's really important to put all of the pieces of the puzzle together, to not just understand what happened, but understand why it happened so we can prevent accidents like this from occurring in the future," Hersman said in an interview aired on CNN's "State of the Union."

She said the investigators would have to corroborate "a lot of information," including the radar data, the air traffic control information, and the flight data recorder parameters.

Two Chinese nationals were confirmed killed and more than 180 others injured after the Asiana Airlines flight 214 crashed in landing Saturday. The Boeing 777-200 aircraft carried 16 crew members and 291 passengers, including 141 Chinese, 77 citizens from the Republic of Korea and 61 Americans.

According to Hersman, the black boxes of the crashed aircraft -- the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder -- have been sent back to the federal agency's headquarters in Washington D.C. for lab work.

SAN FRANCISCO, July 6 (Xinhua) -- The pair killed in a crash landing of an Asiana Airlines plane at San Francisco airport were Chinese nationals, a spokesman of the Chinese Consulate General in San Francisco told Xinhua Saturday night.

A total of 141 Chinese citizens were among the 291 passengers aboard the Asiana Airlines flight that crash-landed at San Francisco International Airport on Saturday. Full story

SEOUL, July 7 (Xinhua) -- One of the two killed in the Asiana Airlines crash landing at San Francisco airport was found to hold Chinese passport, South Korea's foreign ministry said Sunday.

"We sent an official at our San Francisco consulate general to where dead bodies were placed. According to the verification by a coroner there, one (of the two killed) held Chinese passport. The remaining one has yet to be identified as the autopsy was not done, " Lee Jung-gwan, a senior official at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told an emergency news briefing.Full story

SAN FRANCISCO, July 6 (Xinhua) -- One hundred and forty-one Chinese citizens were among the 291 passengers aboard the Asiana Airlines plane that crash landed at San Francisco airport on Saturday, diplomats with the Chinese Consulate General said.

The Chinese citizens included a teacher and 34 high school students, the diplomats said.Full story

SAN FRANCISCO, July 6 (Xinhua) -- An Asiana Airlines Boeing 777 passenger plane flying from Seoul, the Republic of Korea (ROK), on Saturday crashed while landing and burned partly at San Francisco International Airport, California of the United States, with parts spread on the runway.

The Federal Aviation Administration of the United States confirmed that the plane, bound for San Francisco from Seoul, was on flight 214. The accident was technically termed as "crash landing."Full story

KATHMANDU, June 3 (Xinhua) -- Three plane crashes occurred in Nepal during the last two weeks, raising serious questions about the country's civil aviation security and the safety of passengers, most of whom are foreign tourists.

The main reasons, according to experts and government officials, are increasing "unhealthy competition" among private airlines operating in the mountainous terrain and lack of effective regulatory mechanism.Full story

MOSCOW, Sept. 7 (Xinhua) -- A YAK-42 passenger plane carrying 45 people crashed Wednesday after taking off near central Russian city of Yaroslavl, killing at least 43 people aboard, said the Emergency Situations Ministry.

Since 2010, the world has seen a series of major aircraft catastrophes. They are listed as follows:Full story